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Social media platforms are set to be fined if they do not deal with misogynistic abuse and bosses could face jail - as the government draws up new measures.

A cross-party group of lords led by former culture secretary, Baroness Morgan, is proposing a new amendment to the Online Safety Bill which would legally require social media firms to prevent the online abuse and violence against women and girls.

The amendment to the bill, which is due to be debated on Tuesday, is backed by Tory and crossbench peers, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

It also means that companies who failed to remove misogynistic content would face fines worth up to 10 per cent their global turnover.

Bosses could even be jailed up to two years if the legal changes take place, which would treat online violence and abuse against women and girls in the same way as illegal child sexual abuse and terrorist content.

Last year, ministers rejected classing misogyny as a hate crime and instead the government compromised by creating a new offence of public sexual harassment.

In April it was feared thatWhatsApp could soon be banned if it refuses to comply with the new Online Safety Bill.

Under the Bill, tech companies will have a duty to find and remove illegal content being distributed through their social networking platforms.

But this could mean doing away with 'end-to-end encryption' - a security feature which scrambles messages to ensure that only the sender and recipient can read them.

Messaging services that use it, including WhatsApp, Signal, Viber and Element, have signed an open letter opposing the Online Safety Bill ahead of its final reading in the House of Lords.

'The UK government is currently considering new legislation that opens the door to trying to force technology companies to break end-to-end encryption on private messaging services,' it reads.

'The law could give an unelected official the power to weaken the privacy of billions of people around the world.

'We don't think any company, government or person should have the power to read your personal messages and we'll continue to defend encryption technology.'

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Government poised to fine social media platforms if they do not deal with misogynistic abuse - Daily Mail